The 12/2010 LMDE 64-bit installed nicely, but I had trouble after MintUpdate downloaded and installed 128 items.

During the update, MintUpdate paused and asked if I wanted to retain the older version of a file or overwrite it with a newer version. I chose to keep the older version, as I had the same error messages when I installed the Sept/2009 LMDE and chose to install the newer files (at that install there were 600+ updates and several options to chose older/newer files).

Here are the error message I received upon rebooting after MintUpdate. When the boot completed, there was no MintMenu at all, only the hide-desktop icon at far left. Oddly, the messages did not reappear when I rebooted again - and I now see the MintMenu just fine. A self-healing issue?

Anyway, looking good so far. Wish I'd recorded the missing error messages and taken note of the update for which I chose the older file; but I won't fix it if it ain't broken.

1. Could not update ICEauthority file...

2. There is a problem with the configuration server (/usr/lib/libconf2-4/gconf-sanity-check-2 exited with status 256)...

3. Error message that I didn't catch...

4. Nautilus could not create the following folders: /home/runbei/Desktop, /home/runbei/.nautilus...

5. The panel encountered a problem while loading "OAFIID:Gnome-MintMenu"...

I got the popup asking whether to retain old configuration or go with the new one, but I chose to go with the new one. I did not get the error messages afterward like you described, and nothing noticable changed in my system.

the error messages is like the same config files that are with the old LMDE are not going to work with the install. This is very interesting due to work I have not been able to install the new one yet. But it tells me I need to choose the new instead of trying to stay with the old.

I solved the problem I originally posted above. Turned out LMDE had trouble with the fact I had two hard disks in the system and one was an IDE drive, the other SATA. I replaced the IDE sedond drive with a SATA and no longer had the problem.